Theater of the United States

Theater of the United States is based in the Western tradition. Regional or resident theatres in the United States are professional theatre companies outside of New York City that produce their own seasons.

Early history

Before the first English colony was established in 1607, there were Spanish dramas and Native Americans tribes that performed theatrical events.

The birth of professional theatre in America may have begun with the Lewis Hallam troupe that arrived in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1752. A theater was built in Williamsburg in 1716, and, in January 1736, the original Dock Street Theatre was opened in Charles Town, South Carolina. In any case, The Hallams were the first to organize a complete company of actors in Europe and bring them to the colonies. They brought a repertoire of plays popular in London at the time, including Hamlet, Othello, The Recruiting Officer, and Richard III. The Merchant of Venice was their first performance, shown initially on September 15, 1752. Encountering opposition from religious organisations, Hallam and his company left for Jamaica in 1754 or 1755. Soon after, Lewis Hallam, Jr., founded the American Company, opened a theater in New York, and presented the first professionally mounted American play—The Prince of Parthia, by Thomas Godfrey—in 1767.

American Theatre Wing

The American Theatre Wing, "the Wing" for short, is a New York City-based organization "dedicated to supporting excellence and education in theatre," according to its mission statement. Originally known as the Stage Women's War Relief during World War I, it later became a part of the WWII Allied Relief Fund under its current name. The ATW created and sponsors the Tony Awards in theatrical arts.

Background

The Stage Women's War Relief, World War I

In 1917, seven ladies of theater--Rachel Crothers, Louise Closser Hale, Dorothy Donnelly, Josephine Hull, Minnie Dupree, Elizabeth Tyree and Louise Drew--converged to discuss the possibility of forming an organization to aid in war relief. All were active in Broadway theater as patrons, actors, or both. These seven, when they formed the said organization, initially called it "The Stage Women's War Relief." It established workrooms for sewing uniforms and other garments, with total output totaling 1,863,645 articles; clothing and food collection centers; a canteen on Broadway for servicemen; and began sending troupes of entertainers to perform wherever needed. In toto, the group raised nearly $7,000,000 for the war effort.

The Theatre

The Theatre was an Elizabethan playhouse in Shoreditch (in Curtain Road, part of the modern London Borough of Hackney), just outside the City of London. It was the second permanent theatre ever built in England, after the Red Lion, and the first successful one. Built by actor-manager James Burbage, near the family home in Holywell Street, The Theatre is considered the first theatre built in London for the sole purpose of theatrical productions. The Theatre's history includes a number of important acting troupes including the Lord Chamberlain's Men, which employed Shakespeare as actor and playwright. After a dispute with the landlord, the theatre was dismantled and the timbers used in the construction of the Globe Theatre on Bankside.

History

Bowery Theatre

The Bowery Theatre was a playhouse on the Bowery in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City. Although it was founded by rich families to compete with the upscale Park Theatre, the Bowery saw its most successful period under the populist, pro-American management of Thomas Hamblin in the 1830s and 1840s. By the 1850s, the theatre came to cater to immigrant groups such as the Irish, Germans, and Chinese. It burned down four times in 17 years, a fire in 1929 destroying it for good. Although the theatre's name changed several times (Thalia Theatre, Fay's Bowery Theatre, etc.), it was generally referred to as the "Bowery Theatre".

Founding and early management

By the mid-1820s, wealthy settler families in the new ward that was made fashionable by the opening of Lafayette Street, parallel to the Bowery, wanted easy access to fashionable high-class European drama, then only available at the Park Theatre. Under the leadership of Henry Astor, they formed the New York Association and bought the land where Astor's Bull's Head Tavern stood, facing the neighborhood and occupying the area between Elizabeth, Canal (then called Walker), and Bayard streets. They hired architect Ithiel Town to design the new venue.

Theatre

Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance. Elements of art and stagecraft are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience. The specific place of the performance is also named by the word "theatre" as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron, "a place for viewing"), itself from θεάομαι (theáomai, "to see", "to watch", "to observe").

Modern Western theatre comes, in large measure, from ancient Greek drama, from which it borrows technical terminology, classification into genres, and many of its themes, stock characters, and plot elements. Theatre artist Patrice Pavis defines theatricality, theatrical language, stage writing, and the specificity of theatre as synonymous expressions that differentiate theatre from the other performing arts, literature, and the arts in general.